EATING WELL

EATING WELL; For Your Health or Their Business?

By Marian Burros

Published: February 12, 2003

IT is difficult enough to sort right and wrong when the junk food people fight with the healthy food people. It's even more confusing when the healthy food people fight among themselves.

The fruit and vegetable folks are incensed by the National Dairy Council's new $25 million campaign, called 3-A-Day for Stronger Bones, which they say bears an unconscionable similarity to the 5 A Day for Better Health campaign promoting fruits and vegetables. The dairy campaign, critics say, is masquerading as a health campaign when its intent is to get people to buy more dairy products.

Officials of the 5 A Day program, which began 12 years ago and has a budget of $5 million a year, plan to file a complaint with the United States Patent and Trademark Office, for copyright infringement.

The dairy campaign has released three ads with the 3-A-Day logo, all urging three daily servings of dairy products, about twice what most Americans consume. One ad shows a slice of cheese and a sandwich, another a container of yogurt and the third a glass of milk and cookies.

The ads do not distinguish between whole-milk and reduced-fat or fat-free products. And that is really what has critics steaming, including the National Cancer Institute, which holds the 5 A Day trademark, and the Center for Science in the Public Interest. The dairy industry, said Bonnie Liebman, the center's nutrition director, ''has never been willing to recommend low-fat dairy products even though that's what health professionals think Americans should eat.''

''Dairy products and red meat are the two leading sources of saturated fat in the American diet, and every health authority urges Americans to minimize saturated fat,'' Ms. Liebman said. ''Cheese is the single biggest source of fat in the average American diet, even more than red meat.''

The dairy campaign is not just about strong bones. Its Web site proclaims, among other things, that ''dairy products fill you up, not out. . . .'' ''Eating more milk, cheese or yogurt may actually help reduce the risk of obesity,'' it says.

The Department of Agriculture wears two hats, one as a booster for the industrial farm industry, the other as the keeper of the country's nutrition guidelines. When it comes to a dispute between consumers and the farm industry, the farmers usually win. But this time the agency, which approved the dairy campaign, appears to be locking horns with the National Cancer Institute, which has asked that the dairy ads be pulled.

The department has refused, saying the ads do not contradict dietary guidelines. But those guidelines clearly recommend low-fat dairy.

The National Dairy Council says it is surprised by the hostile reception its ads have received in the health field. Greg Miller, the council's senior vice president for nutrition and scientific affairs, said the ads were designed to ''help cut through consumer confusion about nutrition.''

Dr. Miller said the council would promote low-fat and fat-free products in the future. ''We are responding to the voices of our health care partners, who have come to us and said we need to do more,'' he said.

Among these partners is the American Academy of Pediatrics. But Dr. Roger F. Suchyta, the academy's associate executive director, said that if the academy had seen the original ads and material, ''we would have told them not to put our name on the campaign until it was changed to reflect low fat.''

One of the 3-A-Day ads shows a glass of milk with three cookies, a pairing that some think sends the wrong message.

Repeating the mantra of some nutritionists that there is no good food or bad food, Dr. Miller said: ''They are not huge cookies. The nutrition community has hurt itself in the long run by this punitive restrictive approach. They continue to confuse consumers and drive them away.''

Still, Ms. Liebman wondered, ''Would it have hurt them to show the milk with cereal?''